


it’s rotten work

by qelos (midheaven)



Category: Hinatazaka46
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Drift Bond, Drift Compatibility, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28429896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midheaven/pseuds/qelos
Summary: no glamorous government sponsored vehicle for an unplanned mission, unfortunately.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	it’s rotten work

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [wager your heart and sanity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27740056) by [dmasiv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmasiv/pseuds/dmasiv). 



> hello! this is a purely self-indulgent group dynamic study (?) fic of the best gen smej has ever—or will ever, really—put together. i say this as someone who’s favourite group is the purple one, lol.
> 
> i’m very vague about everyone’s abilities and just the background of the fic in general but i’ll list them down in the end notes! 
> 
> and pls pls pls read the dmasiv fic. PLS. reading the gen dynamics there is what led me to writing this one, so yea
> 
> and yes, title is from That Anne Carson Line

when miho feels it, she thinks it’s konoka, at first. 

a chill crawls down her spine and her blood starts to run cold. but then her gut also sinks, her stomach hollowing out of her. her eyes _burn_ and this can’t be konoka at all. 

and it finally pieces together, her nerve endings joining, forming a clear picture of why the feeling struck her in the first place.

she notices everyone else has frozen, too. they all turn to miho, matching expressions of shocked concern on their faces.

when miho finally speaks, it’s a whisper. almost a prayer. maybe because it is.

“ _nao._ ”

  
  


the rest had to take the train. no glamorous government sponsored vehicle for an unplanned mission, unfortunately.

hina closes her eyes as she runs. thinks about nao as hard as possible. her quiet laugh, her unwavering sensibility. the cadence of her breaths, and—oh.

there. she senses nao, senses that she’s hurt but alive, that she isn’t in any more danger than they initially thought.

absently, hina wonders if, with how desperately she’s running, she’ll set a new personal best. has an inkling she’s running 45 metres a second, _at least._

she arrives at an odd, industrial corner and realises she doesn’t know where she should take her next step. this is as far as her sense can take her.

hina texts hiyori with her location and hopes they come soon.

  
  


it takes them twenty minutes.

hina frowns. “did you go shopping on the way?”

hiyori rolls her eyes. “oh, look at me, i’m supersonic,” she mocks.

“guys.” konoka scolds, and hiyori backs off. hina does, too, putting her hands behind her.

konoka sighs. “does anyone here have a better picture of where she is?”

hiyori shakes her head, as does everyone else. she’d been trying to further hone in on nao the closer they got to hina’s location, but to no avail.

they all turn to look at her and she sighs. she knows what that means. “manamo,” she calls.

manamo nods and climbs onto hiyori’s back. hiyori adjusts manamo’s legs, gets a better, more comfortable hold on her.

miho and miku share a look. miho lifts hiyori by her legs, and with miku there, hiyori feels less of manamo’s weight on her. hiyori nods and miho launches them into the air.

god, hiyori wishes she had enough strength to take off with manamo without needing miho and miku’s lift. someday. she’ll train hard.

manamo’s easier to carry now that they’re both in air—like the ease of piggybacking someone in a pool. manamo rests her chin on hiyori’s shoulder and hiyori stops climbing when they reach a high enough vantage point to see everything within a one-and-a-half kilometer radius.

“you okay?” hiyori asks, even if she doesn’t have to.

manamo hums. “you’re getting better. i don’t feel like spilling my guts all over you anymore.” 

hiyori scoffs. “ _okay_.”

  
  


manamo’s getting frustrated with how long she’s taking.

the buildings are few but they’re _large_ , dozens of rooms and labyrinthine basements. manamo’s head hurts from looking as close as she can, double takes so she makes sure she didn’t miss anything. she can tell hiyori’s getting tired, too, from keeping them both up in the air.

but ten minutes later, on the third floor of the sixth building, the second room from the stairwell—she sees her.

nao, confined to a chair, three guards on her but not facing her. another man speaking furiously on the phone.

“found her,” manamo murmurs and taps hiyori’s shoulder. “found her.”

  
  


manamo and hiyori take a while, but they land back safely and manamo says she’s found nao, relatively unharmed. 

konoka grins. “good work.”

“wait,” miku’s voice comes. “you _saw_ her? like, she can be _seen?_ ”

manamo furrows her brows. “i did, and she was—oh.”

miho exhales. “what did the chair look like? maybe it’s got a suppressant.”

“probably.” manamo closes her eyes and purses her lips. “it’s big—like a dentist’s chair. made of metal.”

konoka bites her lip. “let’s just go with that assumption. suzu, miku, with me. miho, wait by the building entrance. hiyo, get back up and look out for anything fishy. and someone tell nibu what we’re doing.”

  
  


“how do they even have access to a suppressant?” suzuka mutters under her breath. 

miku answers, “could have stolen one from the cops.”

 _still_ , suzuka thinks to herself. “you think they know nao’s in the program?”

konoka frowns. “doubt it. this is too easy. if they knew she was in the program she’d be on a flight to—god knows where by now.” 

and that sends an unpleasant jolt through suzuka, knowing that if she, too, were captured because she was in the program—

they turn the corner to climb the next flight of stairs, careful to not let the sounds of their steps carry. konoka continues, “‘sides. lots of syndicates want abilities like nao’s.”

“you think they’re a syndicate?” miku asks. 

“abandoned building. kidnapping. anti-ability protocols.” konoka shrugs. “it speaks for itself.”

suzuka rolls her eyes. konoka watches too many movies. 

  
  


they arrive at the room manamo instructed them to go to, an electronic lock on its door. one of the corny ones that connect to an app on a smartphone. 

miku already _knows_ suzuka’s internally gagging at the thought. but miku watches as suzuka steps closer, anyway, rubs her fingers together like she always does when she’s about to use her abilities, and she zaps the lock, quietly, so it shuts off and disables instead of risking the beep it’ll make when it unlocks. 

all it takes is a look between them to formulate a plan. the bond is always strongest, like this, when they’re about to go into a fight. 

they rest their backs flat against the walls right next to the door. miku closes her eyes, imagines the door slamming _open_ , and within the next half second she gets an audible confirmation that it does. 

one man moves toward the door and suzuka acts fast, sending a shock to the top of his spine that makes him crumple to the floor. konoka and miku move in, and konoka’s the quickest of them outside of hina, gives two of the men hypothermia before miku can even blink. suzuka runs in and fries nao’s chair next and miku moves her out of the way before nao disappears. 

and then she senses a warning from konoka, _her seven o’clock_ , and miku turns in just enough time to send the man flying to the wall before he can do anything to her. 

they look at their work, all done and clean and successful in under twenty seconds, and— _god_ , miku thinks, if this is what they can do when they’re still in training— 

this is what years of research by the japanese government has accomplished. and she’s a tool in this grand machine. 

the program scares miku, sometimes. 

  
  


nao meets miho by the building entrance and almost collapses into her. 

“oh, i’ve got you,” miho says, lifting her up bridal style. nao interlaces her fingers behind miho’s neck. “i’ve got you, you’re okay.”

“was scared you guys wouldn’t know i was in trouble,” nao mumbles into miho’s shoulder. 

miho laughs. “we’re all in each other’s heads, dummy.”

konoka, miku, and suzuka arrive soon after. nao feels konoka’s hands taking hers and sighs when konoka starts warming her up. 

she hears a bunch of cars arrive, sakamoto-san’s faint voice, before she falls asleep. 

  
  


akari _hates_ that she’s always the one left behind. 

though she supposes it makes sense, given what she can do. _designated survivor_. so that if a mission goes awfully awry the program has a restart point. her. 

when the group messaged where they were headed and what they can surmise of nao’s condition, akari called sakamoto-san and asked for cleanup and transport. she got an earful about risking the secrecy of the program and their general safety, but he approves akari’s request anyway. 

when she sees familiar cars arriving in their driveway, she releases a breath she didn’t realise she was holding. 

the whole team files in, completely unhurt save for nao, if only a little tired. miho sets nao down on the couch and akari kneels in front of her, surveying. 

“heard they used a suppressant on you,” akari says, quietly. 

nao nods. 

“can you do a little trick for me?”

nao takes a deep breath and nods again. she disappears in front of akari and rematerialises. it’s slower than nao’s usual, but the fact that she can still do it in this state gives akari relief. 

“great,” akari tells her, and starts healing her wounds. there’s bruises on her face and ribs and a cut on her upper arm but she’s otherwise fine. akari also tries to take away some of nao’s pain, but it’s a technique she’s still honing. it seems to work, anyway, if nao’s quiet sigh is any indication. 

  
  


sakamoto junichi was never really scared of the girls. 

not when the neural handshake finally stabilised for all nine of them and they were predicting each other’s moves accurately, each sparring session between any two of them always ending up a stalemate. not when they took out the country’s best special operatives team in their third try at a practice test. 

not even today, when the girls managed to stay composed while kosaka was _kidnapped_ , pulling off an extraction mission when they’ve never even trained for anything like it. 

then again, from what he could investigate kosaka’s abductors were only traffickers, nowhere near the upper echelons of organised crime. the girls probably could have done it in their sleep. they got lucky.

but the girls gather around in the living room, share a look, and then all simultaneously look at up at junichi with wide, pleading eyes. 

“pizza,” watanabe says. 

and it _sucks,_ when junichi is reminded like this, that they’re just kids who were forced to grow up too fast. his heart aches, sometimes, wishes that they could just go to high school and join a club and fall in love. 

he sighs and calls takei to buy four boxes.

“told you,” junichi hears hamagishi whisper. “like a charm.”

junichi’s mouth drops. 

now _that_ —

that the girls know how to get junichi’s soft spot. that they’ve manipulated him over _pizza._

 _that’s_ scary. 

  
  


“ _wait._ ”

“oh, my _god_ , tomita, go to sleep already. it’s almost four,” miho’s voice comes. 

“no, but like—why didn’t we notice nao was gone until, like—”

hina interrupts, “i think we all just assumed she was using her powers.”

akari raises a finger. “mmhmm.”

“okay, _rude_ ,” konoka says. “nao, don’t listen to them.”

“i’m not,” nao says.

hiyori chuckles. “thousand yen next time nao just decides to _not_ be seen watanabe starts to panic.”

“thousand yen it’s matsuda who does that.” miku responds. 

“guys, i need my beauty sleep!” manamo protests. “i had to look through concrete walls a kilometer away for ten minutes and my head hurts.”

there’s rustling of sheets and quiet grumbles. 

“glad you’re all safe, though. love you!” manamo adds. 

silence. 

“i _said_.” manamo takes a deep breath. “ _love_ you!”

“oh, god,” nao groans. 

_love you_ , they all say back in a disgruntled, disjointed chorus, and fall asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> ability index: kanemura - telekinesis / kawata - speed / kosaka - invisibility / tomita - electricity / nibu - healing / hamagishi - flight / matsuda - temperature / miyata - vision / watanabe - strength.
> 
> they’re an avengers-like unit formed by the japanese government as some sort of ultraweapon^tm. part of that ultraweapon-ness is that they’re all kind of in permanent Drift with each other, so they move like cogs of an extremely well-oiled machine, a keystone of the program they’re part of ... something like that
> 
> also i know this entire plot is so Unrealistic but like i fr wasn’t kidding when i said this was self indulgent. my brain said 2nd gen dynamic!! found family!! powers!! drift!! and went nyoom
> 
> thank u for reading ♡ and my [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/pisceshorizon) is here as always. pls let me know your thoughts ♡ happy holidays!


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